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Mayor Naheed Nenshi on Tuesday pivoted away from his campaign talk about a slate of pro-developer candidates out to thwart his agenda, now that two members of the group in his crosshairs were elected as councillors.

Ward 4 Councillor-elect Sean Chu and Ward 2’s Joe Magliocca both denounce the $52-million tax hike the mayor and previous council supported, and neither are in for Nenshi’s push to hike the developers’ share on new suburban infrastructure costs to 100 per cent from 77 per cent.

Throughout the campaign, Nenshi aimed rhetorical daggers at candidates with ties to the conservative Manning Centre and Shane Homes CEO Cal Wenzel, the builder who wanted more business-friendly council members.

Although both the mayor and Magliocca spoke of collaboration when they begin sitting together on council, the new Ward 2 member admitted he’s sore about all the mayor’s talk of slates.

“This slate thing, I think the mayor was diffusing it . . . so nobody talked about the $52 million,” Magliocca said. “You know who was running a slate was the friggin’ mayor, endorsing his council and dropping in people to run against me.”

Nenshi had offered support to all incumbent aldermen, including Gael MacLeod, whom Chu unseated from the north-central ward. When another home builder’s list of preferred candidates emerged last week — with Chu and Magliocca on it — Nenshi said that gave voters a good idea of who not to choose.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, the mayor said he was happy that 10 of 12 incumbents won re-election, that he’d already had a good chat with Magliocca and that he’d tried to contact Chu.

“I know that everyone wants what’s best for the community, and that’s what they want too,” the mayor told reporters. “So we’ll see how they do.”

Despite some hard feelings, Magliocca said he also hopes for teamwork with his council mates.

“I don’t have no issues. We have to (work together) for the citizens of Calgary and we have to get this city better than it was yesterday, and the only way we’re going to get it is through co-operation,” he said.

Chu also said he’d put “personal belief, personal anything, aside” to make council work.

Nenshi reasoned Tuesday that before he first became mayor in 2010, council had been highly partisan and divided — he called them broken during the campaign. Things improved quickly, he said.

But during his 2010 campaign, he never picked fights with any individual alderman and candidate, as he sometimes did over the past few weeks.

The mayor said Tuesday he never mentioned Ward 2’s new alderman by name, although he had criticized Magliocca’s musings about a double-decker commuter train between Airdrie and Okotoks.

“It’s sort of funny that both of those candidates are running on this taxpayer-friendly ‘we’re spending too much’ slate and they’re coming up with these billions of dollars promises,” Nenshi told the Herald earlier this month.

He will swear in his new council Monday, and council has its first organizational meeting the following Monday. In late November, it debates the 2014 budget, with a 6.1-per-cent tax increase as the preset starting proposition that council could sharply cut if it gives back this year’s $52-million tax increase.

Ald. Gord Lowe, who is retiring from Ward 2, expressed concern that council’s conservative bloc will grow, particularly with the addition of Chu and Magliocca — both more fiscally hawkish than himself or defeated Ald. Gael MacLeod. (Ward 8 councillor-elect Evan Woolley is more liberal than John Mar, whom he defeated, while Ward 1’s race is headed to a recount.)

“I think it will not be so dramatic, but a quantum shift on council,” Lowe said.

With files from Michael Wright, Calgary Herald

jmarkusoff@calgaryherald.com

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Mayor, councillors talk of working together after bitter election battles

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